Ancient, Ancient Read online

  The movement of metal?

  I can feel the magic surging through me now. It is electric, kinetic. It pumps through this form I’ve entered. It is good.

  Asima stumbled backwards, but she did not pull her hand from her mouth. Roger lurched toward her, reaching out to help her. She looked at him, light bursting from her pupils. She felt something horrible tearing through her bones. She dropped her hand from her mouth to warn Roger to stay back, and the sound spilled out again: “rrrrrraaaaaaauuuuuuugggggggggghhhhhhhhh.”

  In the migration of ants, the one that wanders off, away from the snaking line of workers, is the one who tastes honey. Is the one who climbs a blade of grass. Is the one who drowns.

  Is the one who bursts into flame.

  I stretch. The flaky chemical covering this form I’m in peels away. I have not moved in years, decades. After eons of stillness, I finally feel it: the bursting forth of the power I once had.

  The girl must be terrified.

  Roger was squeezing sweat in his palms. He didn’t know what to do. He had heard of spirits riding you, but only during sleep. He had seen possessions before, but only in church. He was frightened for his safety. He was terrified, too, of the secret Asima was about to tell him.

  I must act quickly. I know a frightened human is liable to try anything. She saw me move. She saw the form I’m trapped in shift. She is the one I must draw in to free me. She must touch.

  In the migration of ants, should you be the one that wanders off, you are on your own. Your feelers and you. No more refuge in the maddening movement of your community. There is no boss. No leader.

  No queen.

  Asima convulsed and leaped toward the lamppost. Roger didn’t know why, but he sprinted forward and caught her before she touched it. When his arms circled her body, the thing she had not told revealed itself. He heard the whisper of her voice. As the words unfolded he saw new life expanding in the air. The rapid multiplication of cells, the formation of new mitochondria and cellular nuclei—the consolidation of Asima and Roger’s DNA.

  Roger pulled Asima to his chest, but she was as good as gone. He did not shake her or scream, nor did he plead for her to hold on. Instead he crumpled to the ground, holding Asima close. He leaned away from the lamppost, not noticing that Asima’s hand fell open and her finger rested against the base of the lamppost.

  Have you ever seen a loved one burst into flame? I have. That is how this all began. Ages ago in a country that no longer exists, among a people long believed to be extinct, at least by flesh-dwellers, something that was what I am now found someone who was close to me, as close as this Asima is to this Roger — no, closer — and took her from me. Her body was left in flames, and I held her, wanting to burn too, but the flames would not eat me. Instead, they bridged this disease into me. You think the one in flames is in danger. No. She is already gone. It is the other, the one left behind.

  The flames did not burn Roger. Even as Asima lay inflamed, he felt no pain. His mind did not register the heat, only the slow but certain advance of Asima’s death. He would not let go of her. Not even when her body began to glow, white hot. He barely flinched when that new life floated from her belly like a gently blown bubble and hovered over his waist. He stared vacantly as it lowered, disappearing into his solar plexus.

  You never realize your loved one has been consumed until they are no longer there. It is only the absence that shocks, not the actual act of disappearing. You may one day forget the burning, having spent eons trapped, waiting for a bridge to another body. But the absence returns — no matter how many flesh-dwellers you consume. You create others like you: burners of flesh, devourers of flesh-dwellers — unrecorded souls.

  But it is never enough.

  In the migration of ants, there is always one.

  Pod Rendezvous

  During third meal, Laki was fidgety. She shoveled down her food without registering taste. Being part of a large birth group had trained her to eat quickly but, for once, her siblings were not the cause of her haste. Today, she was eating alone, and it was an odd sensation that she did not enjoy. There was no one to tell her to slow down or to ask for her leavings. She had finished the whole meal before she realized that no one, not even Se-se was going to join her. With a heavy sigh, she folded her platter in half and pushed it into the dish slot in the wall. The slot sealed itself, and Laki left the kitchen to find some company.

  The hallways were incredibly empty, emptier than Laki had ever remembered them being. She walked with one arm outstretched so that she could trail her fingers along the wall. Halfway to Se-se’s room, she stopped and turned to face the wall. She placed her palm flat against it and closed her eyes. She imagined there was still a room behind the wall and that her sister Yasla was there, waiting to talk with her.

  For Laki, Yasla had been a twin spirit, a guiding light, a soft embrace in a world that had begun to show Laki its sharp edges. And her departure had been devastating. In the year since Yasla’s maturation, Laki had battled disappointments, panic, and rage. While some girls wandered their way toward maturation confused and uncertain, Yasla had always known what she wanted. Before maturation she had applied for and won a top-secret appointment in the mesosphere’s weaponry and transportation department. Laki would have loved to follow in Yasla’s footsteps, but she would not be so lucky.

  Laki’s first experiences with maturation had left her indifferent. Watching her older siblings depart into adulthood never troubled her. There were too many of them to build bonds with. She saw them as troublesome competitors who ruthlessly pushed each other around in wild ploys for dominance and attention. But by the time the birth group had been halved, Laki began to see her siblings differently. They became more precious to her; she saw them as friends rather than competitors, and she felt a deep loss whenever one of them reached maturation.

  Without Yasla, Laki felt completely alone. She turned away from the sealed entrance to Yasla’s room and walked to Se-se’s room. She called out to Se-se, but there was no answer. She wandered on, making her way to the end of the hall where she stopped and placed her ear against the wall. She listened for echoes of the playful battles that had been waged up and down the halls outside her brothers’ rooms, but there was nothing behind that wall but silence.

  Laki’s house never did sustain empty rooms for long. It was an economical entity, completely lacking in nostalgia. After sealing off unused rooms, it cannibalized them, using the raw material to build new rooms. One of Laki’s only at-home pleasures was pressing on walls in search of tiny patches of recycled material. To Laki, walls were like stretches of skin; each patch had its own history embedded within. When she found a new room, she could fuel weeks of ecstasy, methodically working her way around the new walls, judiciously releasing memories and relishing in the company of her beloved siblings—even if only in the fleeting and ghostly form of remembrance.

  Laki felt as if the emptiness of the house would drive her mad. Even the hallways leading to the pod landing room were vacant. Where had Se-se gone? What could the mothers be doing, hidden out of sight? Laki walked toward the mothers’ private chambers, still trailing her fingers along the hallway walls. She was a few paces away from the entrance to the mothers’ rooms when she felt the wall buckle beneath her fingertips. She paused. These hallways were no strangers to her hands. She had poked, prodded, and rubbed every inch of wall that she could reach. She had uncovered and released every memory that was to be found in this quadrant of the house. There should not have been a room there.

  Laki held her hand over the spot where the wall had buckled; her fingers tingled with expectation. As she waited for the wall to thin, she closed her eyes, anticipating the bliss of immersing herself in the company of her siblings. A moan escaped from the room, causing Laki’s eyes to snap open. She quickly pinched above and below the slit that had begun to part the wall.

  She peered through the opening. The room within was full of mothers—more mothers than Laki knew she had.
None of them were gathered into a unit. Most of them stood in a circle in the center of the room, dark red orbs hovering over their outstretched hands. Other mothers stood around the edges of the room with their backs against the walls.

  The moan snaked through the room again, but Laki could not see who was making the sound. She put her hand over the top edge of the opening and elongated it. She leaned in closer and looked up. There, hanging from the ceiling in a shimmering sling, was a woman. Her head was tilted back, her lips parted in a painful grimace. Laki was so struck by the woman’s expression that a few seconds passed before she realized that the woman was unshrouded. The woman grasped the sling and groaned again. She shifted her body sideways and revealed a long purplish tube attached to her stomach.

  Entranced and frightened, Laki followed the tube’s path downward and saw that it was connected to a large globe that was floating just below the woman. The woman gritted her teeth, and the tube pulsed. In synchronicity, the mothers inhaled and exhaled. It seemed as if the room itself were breathing. Silky white strands shot out of the large globe and attached themselves to the small globes that were hovering over the mothers’ hands. The globes filled with light and, for a brief second, Laki could see the curled up forms of embryos within the globes. She let out a loud gasp. A few mothers turned and saw her as the globes’ glittering illuminated the room with an explosion of incandescence.

  Before Laki could see anything else, a body blocked her view. The small opening she had made parted completely. A mother glided out of the room, the expression on her face unreadable behind her veil. The mother sealed the room, took Laki by the hand, and led her away from the mothers’ quarters. She stopped at the hallway that led to Laki’s room and turned to face Laki. Laki opened her mouth, but found she could not speak. The mother waited patiently.

  “That was one of my mothers, wasn’t it?” Laki asked.

  “Yes,” the mother sang. She took both of Laki’s hands and pressed against Laki’s palms with her fingers.

  “How many do I have?”

  “Nineteen.”

  Laki was briefly shocked into silence. “I thought there were only six of you.”

  “How do you think we can be everywhere at once?”

  Laki heard a smile in the mother’s voice, though she could not see it through the blur of the mother’s veil.

  “What is happening in there?”

  The mother brushed her hand over Laki’s bald head.

  “We received new babies today,” she sang. “We are nurturing them.”

  Despite the mother’s calming presence, Laki’s heart began to beat rapidly.

  “Will I have to do that? Hang from the ceiling…”

  “You will not have to, it will be your choice.”

  “But it’s hurting her.”

  “It hurts, yes, but it’s not hurting her. She asked to nurture them.”

  Laki looked at this lone mother incredulously.

  “You will learn, Laki. Mothering makes you want to give, even if it exhausts you.”

  Laki shook her head.

  “You don’t need to understand now, Laki, but that feeling will find you. Weeks or months into your time with the babies, it will sneak up on you.”

  Laki’s face was frozen in an expression of horror.

  “You’re thinking only about the pain, La-Laki. Don’t. It is pointless. Every drop of pain is balanced by waves of pleasure.”

  “Pleasure?”

  “Pleasure. Pleasure at your successes. Pleasure in watching the children mature. Pleasure with the other mothers. Emotions you never imagined.”

  “But what if I never find those pleasures. What if I wasn’t made to be a mother?”

  The mother burst into laughter. “No one was born a mother, Laki. Yet all of us are able to mother if we allow ourselves to be guided by the needs of the children.”

  “But the babies…”

  “Laki, you do not need to think about babies right now.”

  “But tomorrow—when I join my mother-unit, will I get babies? Will I have to take care of the wombs?”

  The mother shook her head and rubbed Laki’s back.

  “Tomorrow you will meet with the others in your unit. You will begin the process of melding the cloak. Were you not listening to anything we told you in preparation for the mother-unit?”

  “You didn’t tell me about the wombs!” Laki tried to wound the mother with an accusation, but the rage died in her throat. Every word that came out of her mouth was softened by the power of the mother’s love.

  “We told you what you need to know before you join the unit. No one learns about the babies until after they join their unit…which you won’t until tomorrow. This is your last day at home. Why are you wandering around the house? There’s no more training today. Take off your uniform. Enjoy the rest of your time, go see your friends.”

  Laki didn’t answer. She imagined herself hanging in a sling suspended over a huge womb. Panic welled up in her chest; she found it hard to breathe. The mother hugged Laki.

  “Go,” she said.

  Laki turned away from the mother and ran down the hall, choking on the urge to scream. When she reached her room, she waved her hand over the sealed entrance. The wall thinned and parted down the middle. She stepped over the threshold, and a softly modulated voice rang out:

  “One day to maturation.”

  Laki winced. Grabbing the edges of her robe, she yanked the white fabric from her shoulders. Her elbow flung out wildly, triggering the voice to repeat itself:

  “One day to maturation.”

  “Shut up!” Laki snapped. She stumbled toward her wardrobe portal while pulling off the robe and dropping it on the ground. As she fumbled to release the waist of her dress, she caught sight of her reflection. Startled, she fell still. Swathed in mother-unit whites, she could be any girl on the brink of maturation. A young mother, perhaps, anyone but herself.

  Just beyond her reflection, Laki saw a message globe float into the room. She looked at it over her shoulder, then turned back to the reflective wall. She squinted her eyes and tried to imagine what she would look like draped in her mother-unit veil. She envisioned a group of faceless women gathered around her. A disgusted hiss spilled out through her lips. She waved her hand over her reflection, and the reflective wall went dark.

  When Laki walked to the wardrobe portal, the message globe followed her. She passed her hand over a flat, round disc embedded in the wall. A rod slid out from where the disc had been and presented her with a row of cloths dancing around on hangers. Even her wardrobe had ceased to be an accurate reflection of her. Mixed in with her customary black cloths, were the mother-unit whites, permanently shaped into formless robes and dresses that, after tomorrow, would become her daily uniform.

  At the thought of tomorrow, Laki felt a tightening in her chest. The terror that she had been carefully containing flooded her body. She rifled through the cloths, seizing anything white and flinging it to the ground. When there was nothing left but black cloths and empty hangers, Laki collapsed to the floor. Every wild scheme she had concocted to avoid her fate trampled through her memory. Breathing heavily, she looked around the room manically as if through feverish effort she could find the secret and escape her future. The message globe chirped, and her panic deflated. She let out a resigned sigh. She was powerless to change the thrust of her future, and nothing she did could alleviate that fact.

  The globe drifted down to hang next to her shoulder. She blew on it, triggering the release of its message.

  “Greetings elder sister,” a high-pitched voice chanted.

  Laki shifted so that she was sitting cross-legged on the floor and opened her hand to accept the message. The globe floated down to rest in her palm. An image of her sister—cinnamon-colored skin, freckles, a dark mouth—sprouted in her mind. She heard Se-se whispering, “I think it’s going to work. We’re going to get you out of the mother-unit. You have to meet me later. I’ll send another message.”
/>   Laki rolled her eyes. Even up to the final hour, Se-se was full of optimism. Laki pinched the message globe and it deflated. She flattened it against the wall with the palm of her hand and watched as it melded into the wall. She took a deep breath and climbed to her feet. She peeled off her white dress and threw it on top of the heap of discarded white cloths. She plucked a short length of black fabric from her clothes rod and wrapped it around her body. With the heat from her hand, she fused the cloth’s edges to create one seamless dress. She pinched along the waist, the dip of her back, and under her bust to give it shape. She picked out a shorter length of cloth to wrap over her shoulders and melded it to the dress, creating sleeves. There was a lump around her middle revealing the silhouette of a marriage belt resting on her hips. Nothing to be done about that.

  She pulled a blank message globe from the wall and closed her eyes. She projected images of a wild party into the globe, purred “the rendezvous-less zone,” then sent the thought, “Maturation tomorrow.” She opened her eyes.

  “Twelve messages,” she said. The message globe split into twelve tiny spheres—each carrying an identical invitation. She touched each sphere while saying a name, and they zipped away to deliver her invitation.

  Laki walked to the pod landing room with a grim look on her face. She didn’t look like a woman going to a party, she looked like a prisoner headed to her execution. In the pod landing room, she stood briefly in reverent silence. This, she thought, is the end of my life. She decided to savor every second. She treasured the whirling sound of her pod ballooning to full expansion and the whisper of the exit portal opening in the roof. She craned her head back and reveled in the pull of velocity as her pod shot away from home up into the upper atmosphere.